GOP chief: Obama is 'in love with the sound of his own voice'

Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus charged today that President Obama is long on speeches and short on follow through.

“We'll probably be talking in another in six months before another 'great speech' from the president who is in love with the sound of his own voice,” Priebus said this afternoon on MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell Reports.

Congress is expected to vote tomorrow on a continuing resolution that would keep the government funded through September. But when that expires, observers are expecting another fight over the 2012 budget.

“He's in love with giving speeches,” Priebus continued, “but he's not really in love with following through with his promises and his rhetoric.”

Priebus noted that Obama had a chance to rein in entitlement spending, when he rolled out his 2012 budget, but didn’t do so. “His time of embracing reducing debt came in his budget, which he didn't do anything about,” he said.

The RNC chief rejected the idea of any potential tax increases – even for the wealthy, equating that to “tax hikes for people with small businesses.” That was an argument Republicans made during the 2010 debate over the expiring Bush tax cuts.

He then repeated a GOP talking point that is being hammered all over the airwaves: “We don’t have a revenue problem in this country,” Priebus said. “We have enough money coming in. The problem in this country, and the president has said himself over and over, is that we are addicted to spending in Washington and that's where the focus needs to be.”

Priebus isn’t the first to make the political charge Obama is long on speeches, but short on substance. Hillary Clinton took to using the “Speeches not Solutions” slogan in attacking candidate Obama during the bitter 2007-2008 Democratic primary. John McCain charged that Obama used “empty words.”

The White House and Democratic National Committee would argue that the president won the primary, the general election and got health care passed with a similar approach.